Plant leaked arsenic into river: report
A river in southwest Guizhou province that supports at least 20,000 nearby residents has been polluted by a large amount of arsenic discharged from a chemical plant, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said yesterday.
The plant is owned by Guizhou Hongfu Industrial, the maker of a phosphate fertiliser, and was jointly sponsored by the Guizhou provincial government and several investment companies. It planned to list on the Shanghai stock market next month, according to the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
The company could not be reached for comment last night.
High levels of arsenic and other chemicals, including phosphate and fluorine, had killed at least 10,000 fish in the Chongan River, a 70km river in the city of Kaili, the human rights group said.
No human fatalities due to arsenic poisoning had yet been reported, the group quoted a city government official as saying.
The pollution incident was also reported in local press. 'The river turned black and gave off a stinking foul smell,' the Guizhou Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.
About 20,000 ethnic Miao people live along the Chongan River, which directly provides drinking water to at least 5,000 people.
The fertiliser plant had been releasing chemical toxins into the river since it was set up in 2002 with a capital of 5 billion yuan from the provincial government and other investors, who aimed to turn it into a national phosphate-producing base, the human rights report alleged.
More than 500 local residents had been hit by serious skin diseases since then.
The level of phosphate was more than 300 times the safety limit, the group said.
The provincial government and local environmental agencies had rushed to the scene to deal with the pollution disaster, it added.
The incident is the latest to hit the mainland's troubled waterways, which are dangerously polluted after decades of rapid economic growth and widespread flouting of environmental regulations.
More than 70 per cent of the mainland's rivers and lakes and 90 per cent of its underground water is contaminated by pollution, depriving more than 300 million people of access to safe drinking water, according to government figures.
In May, a major algal outbreak hit Tai Lake, China's third biggest, and rendered water supplies for 2 million people in the city of Wuxi undrinkable. The bloom was caused by drought and pollution.
